Deep in Conversation

There was a magical moment when I put the camera down today and enjoyed, really enjoyed, a bit of a chat. Admittedly it was rather one sided but still wonderful all the same to feel a rapport with a beautiful creature such as this.

Temptingly near and yet so far he came up, very inquisitive and curious about me and the dogs sitting in the middle of his patch. time and time again he buzzed round coming ever nearer. I became in the end just part of his world and holding my finger out he very nearly landed but just at the last minute whizzed off at speed again ...and again! He loved to eyeball and I mean eyeball just for a nano second and he did get told off for not ever landing and being a bit mean with his hovering time.

He can move each of his wings independently, flap each one up and down, rotate forward and back in order to fly up and down, forward, backwards, stop, hover, make hairpin turns at full speed reaching 30mph or in slow motion. Be impressed!

Each eye has 30,000 lenses and he uses 80% of his brain for processing that information - so what part of that percentage did not get that I had a camera and wanted a blip for today?! I think he rather liked the fast shutter noise as I fired off six frames per second, time and time again. It certainly didn't bother him. This shot, with hands together looking deep in thought about our conversation, was taken right in front of me in the split second before he shot off to do another circuit!

More from today. Be thankful I didn't blip the spider :)